PORTUGUESE FABRICS DAZZLE IN MILAN
With an offer that perfectly combines tradition and innovation, 12 Portuguese companies revolutionize the fabrics for autumn-winter 2015/2016, with unexpected compositions, ecological materials and bold colours and patterns giving the motto to the collections exhibited in this edition of Milano Unica.
With an offer that perfectly combines tradition and innovation, 12 Portuguese companies revolutionize the fabrics for autumn-winter 2015/2016, with unexpected compositions, ecological materials and bold colours and patterns giving the motto to the collections exhibited in this edition of Milano Unica.
The country of fashion has surrendered to design, innovation and quality of “made in Portugal” fabrics, with the interest of brands such as Giorgio Armani, Diesel or United Colors of Benetton putting Italy in the fifth place of the major exportation destinies of the Portuguese textile and apparel industry, a position that has been reinforced in the first six months of 2014 with an increase of 1.6% of sales, to 196.5 million euros.
«Italy is today an open door to the world», sustains Baltazar Lopes, administrator of the wool fabrics’ company Albano Morgado. With a collection based on new wool and cotton blends and wool double-fabric with water repellency, the company wants to seduce more Italian clients and, therefore, to increase the exports volume of wool fabrics to this market, which in the first half of the year represented 1.1 million euros, according to INE’s data.
Knitted fabrics are another strength of the Portuguese textile industry, with exhibitors such as Vilartex and Tintex trying to increase the 2.33 million euros in exports of this product category in the first semester of the year to the transalpine market. «In this edition we are going to present fashionable, functional, technical and sustainable articles», unveils Carlos Coutinho, responsible for the external market at Vilartex. «Our goal, with this attendance, is to publicize, promote and to consolidate Vilartex and its collection of circular knits in the Italian and surrounding markets», he adds. A goal also in the mind of Tintex’s administrator, Mário Jorge Silva, that hopes «to attract the Eastern European markets» with knits where ecology and design share the lead role.
With a combined know-how of several generations, Arco Têxteis (founded in 1923) and Somelos Tecidos (founded in 1958) present, on their side, an eclectic offer of shirting fabrics, which features “made in Portugal” cotton fabrics, the most demanded by Italians in the first half of 2014, with sales of 5.2 million euros.
Riopele proposes, for next year’s cold season, «a wide mix of materials dominated by the luxury cocooning mood. Plastic-coated and laminated surfaces, shimmer, bonded, structures, jacquards and quilting are another strengths of this collection», describes the commercial director Rita Fortes. The colour palette divides itself in «new pastels», combined with camel, grey and winter white tones, darker colours such as oxblood, forest green and black shades, and orange, yellow and red tones, counterbalanced with cyan blue. The company, according to Rita Fortes, is also «lifting the veil» regarding a new project – the concept “Çeramica Clean”.
The participation of the Portuguese companies Albano Morgado, Arco Têxteis, Gierlings Velpor, Lemar, Paulo de Oliveira, Penteadora, Riopele, Sanmartin, Somelos Tecidos, Tessimax, Tintex and Vilartex at Milano Unica, , which takes place September 9th-11th, is an initiative promoted by Associação Selectiva Moda with the support of European funds (Qren), under the project From Portugal. This project includes more than 65 international actions planned for 2014, which cover the entire textile and fashion chain, divided by four continents – Europe, Asia, Africa and America –, with a total investment of EUR 9 million.
